Michael Howard, the soon-to-be-leader of the British Conservative Party is clearly a man who is trying to reinvent himself. Chris Brooke of the excellent “Virtual Stoa”:http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd1368/weblog/blogger.html reminds us of “one of the key paradoxes about the man”:http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd1368/weblog/2003_10_01_archive.html#106759949225059957 : that the child of an asylum seeker has promoted policies under which his own father would have been denied entry to the UK. Tom Watson MP “lists some of the reasons why Howard was once so reviled”:http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/archives/001071.html.
{ 4 comments }
Sindelar 10.31.03 at 1:15 pm
I can’t (honestly) decide–whether Howard has become a better politician over time, or whether it is the dross of the current Opposition frontbench that makes him look so much better than he did 8 years ago…
Barry 10.31.03 at 1:58 pm
That sort of hypocrisy is almost required in the US – the children of each immigrant wave regard the new wave as different and wrong.
People who are middle-class due to their parents being union workers, and due to large-scale public colleges have no trouble sh*tting on unions, dissing colleges.
Women who owe their careers to feminism dis feminism.
I’ve met a number of veterans who served their country who really hate draft dodgers – Democratic ones, that it. Republicans who were too busy for Vietnam are just fine with them.
Small businessmen who earned their money the hard way will applaud a crony capitalist whose wealth came from property seizure.
Intelligent, devout Christians become gullible fools once a clear charlatan shows up and speaks their language.
Intelligent leftists can suddenly turn into warmongers, even after they’ve had plenty of evidence that the war which they’re mongering won’t be the war that they hope for.
Lawrence Krubner 10.31.03 at 8:11 pm
There’s a reasonable element to some of Barry’s criticism, but I have no hope for the Left in America until it can open its ears and here the feedback it is being given. Barry’s remarks instead remind me of the moralism that many of my close friends (on the left) like to dish out – judging American’s as hypcrites rather than listening to American’s complaints with the old system.
The middle class complaint against the overly rigid work rules of the labor unions is similar to the middle class complaint against outrageous CEO salaries. Both violate some middle class sense of fair reward for fair work and, worse, both seem to damage American economic competitiveness.
Young women today who’ve never known a time when the law required a husband’s signature to open a mutual fund account can reasonably say they don’t see a need for the feminist movement. Things have changed.
I can match your tales of serviceman who forgive Bush his follies with tales of servicemen who hate Bush.
You confuse Christians with the Christian Right. Go talk with some liberal Quakers and you’ll get a sense of the breadth of Christian political sentiment in America today. The anti-war movement, for instance, got wide support from the Christian Left.
Intelligent leftists, I’d like to think I’m one, will gladly turn into war mongers if such wars can stop mass rapes in Bosnia or the genocide of the Shiites in Iraq.
SOTN 11.11.03 at 3:47 pm
Check out
http://www.cafepress.com/michael_howard
for Howard related clothing and other satrical items!
ENJOY!
Comments on this entry are closed.